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Downtime and Apache Restricted Mode in E-Business Suite Release 11i

As I started writing down the steps for my recent post Downtime and Apache Restricted Mode in Release 12, Steven and I exchanged some conversations which made me realize that there would be questions about the availability of the same feature Release 11i. And, it turns out to be fairly accurate realization. So, this one is for those enthusiastic pals of mine on this community. I will try to do this differently, hence making it relatively shorter in content.

Is this feature available in 11i?

Yes. Check out the documentation in the References section.

Is the procedure to configure the same?

Yes. As you might have understood already, there are two pieces in this puzzle.

Creation of downtime

Managing Apache in Restricted Mode

Answering the question based on these two tasks,

Step '1' is pretty much the same in 11i and Release 12. Hence, I am not recreating the screen shots for you here. Check out the steps in the table below.

Step '2' is automated in Release using the perl script where as in Release 11i, the administrator has to go through some manual steps and run Autoconfig.

What are the exact steps in Release 11i?.

Thanks to our OAM team, these are well documented. And, they work like charm. Below are the sequence of steps for my DBA friends.

Note: Navigation in 11i for the downtime page creation is slightly different than Release 12.

S.No

Task

How to?

1.

Schedule System Downtime and warn your end users of an impending downtime

Use OAM Autoconfig editor to edit the variable < s_trusted_admin_client_nodes
> to include the list of hosts that can access OAM in restricted mode.
Run autoconfig to ensure that the new settings take effect.

Ensure that you have enabled the the monitoring user account by unlocking
the ad_monitor user account and setting the password by using the following
commands:

alter user ad_monitor account unlock;

Login to SQL*Plus as user ad_monitor. Default password is lizard. Reset
the password.

3.

Shutdown all Applications services

Use the standard ad script from $COMMON_TOP/admin/scripts/<context_name> directory:

adstpall.sh <apps user>/<password>

4.

Enable maintenance mode for your Applications system

Run adadmin, and:

Select option 5 'Change Maintenance Mode'

Select
option 1 'Enable Maintenance Mode'

5.

Start OAM in restricted mode to monitor patching in progress

From the $COMMON_TOP/admin/scripts/<context_name> directory, run:

adaprstctl.sh start

6.

Begin applying patch

Run adpatch (hotpatch=n)

7.

Monitor patching in progress

Access OAM in restricted mode from the following URL : http://host:port/servlets/weboamLocal/oam/oamLogin

I am a big fan of the ability to advertise an impending downtime ntavely through the application, however, there is an existing bug that needs to be addressed to make this functionality worthwhile. The date format generated by the downtime functionality is hardcoded for DD-MM-YYYY. There is no way to change this (currently) through the application. What should be done, is for this functionality to check the ICX date format, and use that. We had SR Number 6711531.993 opened for this, and was told bug 6776657 was filed as an enhancement. Since I can not customize this to FIX the date format, this functionality is not useful in its present state. This seems like too easy of a fix to let sit. Anything you can do to expedite this bug for resolution would be apreciated.

I have one requirement. If it is not relevant to this topic, I am sorry.

I want to login to applications with sysadmin user at the same time, no other user should not be able to login. is it possible in 11.5.10.2 version? I mean only sysadmin user should be able to login? This is for our testing purpose, when ever we do restore or recovery scenarios, we dont want our users to login to system, until unless we thoroughly test the system. So, we want to restrict all other users to login and only sysadmin user should be able to login for some time before giving the system to users.

With the caution that we internally have not tested this on 11.5.9 before writing this article - It is possible on 11.5.9 as well, provided you apply the pre-requisites (11i.OAM.H) and its pre-requisites using Metalink Note 258330.1.

As a general proactive advice, 11.5.9 is into sustaining support since June 2008. We strongly encourage your customer to be on 11.5.10 with latest ATG PF-H (RUP-7); infact Release 12.1.1 upgrade is all the more better :-).